David Owens
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199691500
- eISBN:
- 9780191744938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691500.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
For Hume the power of consent raised the Problem of Normative Power as much as the power to make promises. To see the parallel here we must distinguish the power of consent from the normative ...
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For Hume the power of consent raised the Problem of Normative Power as much as the power to make promises. To see the parallel here we must distinguish the power of consent from the normative significance of choice. Choice serves our interest in controlling the non-normative situation. And to see the solution to Hume’s problem, we must recognize that consent operates on bare wrongings like rape and trespass. What grounds the power of consent is our interest in having control over the normative situation and in particular our permissive interest, our interest in its being the case that such things as rape and trespass wrong us unless we declare otherwise. In its reliance on declaration, consent works quite differently from forgiveness.Less
For Hume the power of consent raised the Problem of Normative Power as much as the power to make promises. To see the parallel here we must distinguish the power of consent from the normative significance of choice. Choice serves our interest in controlling the non-normative situation. And to see the solution to Hume’s problem, we must recognize that consent operates on bare wrongings like rape and trespass. What grounds the power of consent is our interest in having control over the normative situation and in particular our permissive interest, our interest in its being the case that such things as rape and trespass wrong us unless we declare otherwise. In its reliance on declaration, consent works quite differently from forgiveness.
